The 1932 NCAA football season saw the Michigan Wolverines win the Knute Rockne Memorial Trophy as national champion under the Dickinson System. Because the "Big Nine" conference didn't permit its teams to play in the postseason, however, the Wolverines were not able to accept a bid to the Rose Bowl.[2] As such, the Pasadena game matched the #2 and #3 teams, USC and Pittsburgh, with the USC Trojans winning the East-West matchup 35-0.

November 11 On Armistice Day, TCU (8-0-1) hosted Texas (6-1-0) and won 14-0.

November 12 In Nashville, Tennessee (7-0-0) and Vanderbilt (6-0-1), played to a scoreless tie. Michigan beat Chicago 12-0, Purdue won at Iowa 18-0, and Wisconsin beat Minnesota 20-13. Ohio State beat Penn 19-0. USC beat Oregon 33-0. Army beat North Dakota State 52-0. At Lincoln, Neb., Pittsburgh and Nebraska played to a 0-0 tie. At Chicago, Notre Dame beat Northwestern 21-0

November 19Michigan closed its season with a 3-0 win at Minnesota, Ohio State closed at Illinois with the same 3-0 score. Wisconsin won at Chicago 18-7, and Purdue beat Indiana 25-7. Notre Dame defeated Navy in a game at Cleveland, 12-0. Pittsburgh beat Carnegie Tech, 6-0. In Houston, TCU beat Rice 16-6. Army narrowly beat visiting West Virginia Wesleyan 7-0. At Providence, Colgate (8-0-0) and Brown University (7-0-0) faced each other for the season-ender for both teams. Colgate had held its first 8 opponents scoreless, and the nation waited to see if that streak would be ended by Colgate's toughest opponent of the year. Colgate's Red Raiders won 21-0 to close the season with a 264-0 edge on its opposition.

November 24 On Thanksgiving Day, USC won at Washington 9-6; that win, along with California's 3-0 loss to Washington State, gave USC the Pacific Coast crown and a trip to the Rose Bowl.

November 26 At Yankee Stadium, Notre Dame beat Army 21-0. Pittsburgh beat visiting Stanford 7-0 to close its season unbeaten (8-0-2). Tennessee beat Kentucky 26-0. TCU closed its season at Dallas, with an 8-0 win over SMU. In eleven games, TCU had registered seven shutouts, and finished unbeaten (10-0-1).

USC had beaten Pitt in the 1930 Rose Bowl, 47-14, and the rematch three years later resulted in a larger defeat. Before a crowd of 84,000 the previously unbeaten Pitt Panthers reached the "red zone" only twice. In the second quarter, a long run gave the Panthers first down on the USC 24 yard line, but Warren Heller's pass fell in the end zone, and under the rules of the day, the result was a turnover (and a touchback, with USC given first down on the 20). Pitt got another chance soon after on a blocked punt, but was stopped on downs. With the help of holes opened up by Trojan halfback, USC scored five touchdowns (including three in the final quarter) and won 35-0. With New Year's Day falling on a Sunday, the Rose Bowl took place on Monday, January 2, 1933 [3]

The AP sportswriters' poll would not begin continuously until 1936.[4] (although, the first time was a one instance publishing in 1934[5]) Frank G. Dickinson, an economics professor at the University of Illinois, had invented the Dickinson System to rank colleges based upon their records and the strength of their opposition. The system was originally designed to rank teams in the Big Nine (later the Big Ten) conference. Chicago clothing manufacturer Jack Rissman then persuaded Dickinson to rank the nation's teams under the system, and awarded the Rissman Trophy to the winning university .[6]

The system awarded 30 points for a win over a "strong team", and 20 for a win over a "weak team". Losses were awarded points (15 for loss to a strong team, 10 for loss to a weak team). Ties were treated as half a win and half a loss (22.5 for a tie with a strong team, 15 for a tie with a weak team). An average was then derived by dividing the points by games played.[7]

In addition, Professor Dickinson announced in 1932 that "differential points" would be factored in for an "intersectional game", with ratings of 0.00 for East schools, higher points for "Middlewest" (+4.77) and Southwest (+1.36), negatives for the South (-2.59), the Big Six (-2.60) and the Pacific Coast (-2.71).

Michigan and USC were both unbeaten and untied, but as a "Middlewest" team, Michigan had a higher average rating. The higher weight put four Western Conference teams in Dickinson's top 11: Michigan, Ohio State, Purdue and Wisconsin.

In 1932, the national championship trophy was presented to the winning school by the Four Horsemen (Harry Stuhldreher, Jim Crowley, Don Miller, and Elmer Layden). [8]

^"The Dickinson system awards 30 points for a victory over a strong team, and 20 for victory over a weak team. Defeats count half as much as victories, and ties are consideredas games half won and half lost. Dividing this total by the number of games played gives the final rating, "ILLINOIS BEST FOOTBALL TEAM OF YEAR," The Syracuse Herald, Dec. 4, 1927, p23